her for his flying school. Rankin had taught Native American pilot Mary Riddle and was interested in creating "a 'rainbow', all-female stunt team", though the group never materialized. In March 1932, Hing had her first flying lesson. According to her teacher, Tex Rankin, she was a remarkably quick learner. He shared more details in the Oregonian: "The first lesson consists of control exercises; the use of the rudder in the extremes, full rudder to the right and full rudder to the left; the use of the allerons, banking the ship vertically to the left and then to the right, and the use of the elevators, diving and zooming the ship several times. The trick is to learn to use all three together. This Miss Hing did after only ten minutes, and at the end of 15 minutes she pulled the throttle back and put the ship into a glide, landing it with little difficulty. I coached her through the speaking tube, but she did everything right. That's unusual the first time for anyone." Chinese-American Flying School Hing, who had family in China, wanted to become an aviation instructor for Chinese women. "I believe that women can learn to fly as easily as men," she told reporters, "and that eventually there will be just as many women flying as men." It was her opinion that "a country sees only through the eyes of its fliers." After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Portland became the site of a Chinese-American flying school, with the aim of training students to become fighter pilots in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Hing wanted to attend, but her father forbade it. However, he did allow her to buy her own aircraft, a 1931 B-5 Kinner Fleet biplane, which she used to perform in airshows up and down the West Coast. She once made a surprise visit to her brother and sister-in-law's farm in Aurora, Oregon, landing her plane in their wheat field. By 1942, she had accumulated over 200 hours of flying time. Plane crashes Hing once collided with a pothole on the runway, flipping her plane onto its back, and had to have it rebuilt. In 1936, Lacey Murrow, brother of Edward R. Murrow, crashed his plane into Leah's while trying to land. Her plane, which was parked and unoccupied, sustained 500 dollars' worth of damage. The Murrow brothers bought Leah's plane: she spent the